 "Only 1-1.25% of Indian IT employees are above 50, more than 50% below 30")
As little as 1-1.25 per cent of those working in the Indian information technology (IT) sector are above 50 years of age, Financial Express (FE) reports.
Citing data from the country's largest IT company, Tata Consultancy Services' FY23 annual report, the newspaper reported that only 1.1 per cent of its employees are aged above 50 years. On the other hand, 52.69 per cent of the company's employees were below the age of 30, the FE report said.
Interestingly, TCS is not alone in terms of having a younger workforce on its rolls. A similar trend was observed at Infosys, which is the country's second-largest IT firm. Citing data from ICICI Securities, FE reported that only 2.5 per cent of the company's employees around the world were above the age of 50 years, while about 60 per cent of its employees were below 30 years.
The situation was no different at LTI, where below 30 years comprised around 46 per cent of its workforce and only two per cent of employees were above 50 years, the report said.
The trend in the west
While IT employees in India are overwhelmingly young, the scene in the west is completely different. For example, in US and Europe, only 17 per cent of TCS employees are less than 30 years, while 21.8 per cent of them are more than 50, the FE report added.
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Talking about the stark difference in the demographics of the workforce in India and the west, former CFO at Infosys, V Balakrishnan told FE that taking age into consideration is seen as a discriminatory practice in the US. Moreover, experienced employees are preferred to represent the companies for onsite work and this may be the reason for the asymmetry in the age of employees working in India and the West.
Another industry expert, Pareekh Jain was quoted in the report as saying that since most senior officials of Indian teams are located overseas, the teams in India appear to be overtly young. He added that when compared to India, the age of retirement is also higher in the US and may play a role in the age profile of the employees.